The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Al - By Andrew Levkoff Page 0,27
keep it safe. I kneeled by our hearthside lararium till the flames became embers. My prayers twisted into thoughts of how I might undo my husband’s betrayal and reclaim my daughter. I awoke on the floor, cold and alone.
“My biggest regret is that he had not died that day, for while he lived, my fate worsened. I was taking work anywhere I could find it: baking pies to sell to the troops, sewing, anything. I starved myself trying to save every as. But it was taking too long. It would take forever. Then Sulla marched on Rome. My husband was among those defending the gates.
“Four months ago, two men came to my door. They weren’t his friends, and they weren’t soldiers. They showed me the leather bag from his kit. It bore the mark he had carved on the flap. There was a large tear on the front that went through to the other side. There were dark stains on both sides.”
“Shall I offer condolences?”
“I wouldn’t accept them. Anyway, he was killed, but not before he had gone into debt again. I was so stupid; legionaries, whoring, gambling – just different names for the same word. Those men had come to collect. They showed me the contract; his mark was on it, there was no denying it. And they knew about the forty aureii. I tried to stop them, but they came in and found the hiding place within minutes. I thought I had been clever, but they had experience. We save anything that might be reused – I never discarded the broken staves; they found them in my trunk. But how had they found me? Before the battle my husband must have told them he had given me the money. I hope they tortured him.”
“Why do you insist on calling him ‘husband?’ It borders on profanity.”
“I do it with purpose. He was my husband. Our marriage was not arranged. I chose him, Minerva help me. Livia is gone because I could not govern her father. I call him ‘husband’ to remind me.”
“If you hadn’t chosen him,” I said quietly, “she would not have been born.”
“She would have been better off.” Her tears came now.
“You cannot think so.”
“I can. And do. Look at the world I have given her.”
“It was never yours to give.”
“I am her mother. I am responsible.”
“You are not a goddess, Sabina. If every bride stopped to think upon the odds of their family’s future, there would soon be none left to risk the vows. You can only do so much.”
“Say what you will. I have not done enough.”
I wanted to find more words of comfort but did not know where to look. They were not within me, of that I was certain. Her story had made me feel like a scoured gourd.
“You do not yet know the worst of it,” she said wiping her eyes and composing herself. “The forty in gold was not enough to settle this new debt – he owed four thousand sesterces beyond what those men stole from me. My loving husband’s estate, his gift to me upon his death,” she said bitterly.
It took me a moment to digest this new information. Suddenly, it dawned on me. “Tell me you did not do this thing.”
She glanced at me, then away. “I did. I went to the slave merchants quarter. I found three, but none would give me more than two thousand sesterces. Pretty young girls fetch so much more than mothers in their thirties. Finally, I found Boaz. He was not hard to locate; he supplies the finest houses in the city. I was wrong about him. He tried to talk me out of it; getting in, he said, is so much easier than getting out. For me, the choice was simple. In the end, he gave me twice what I was worth – four thousand sesterces. I was his for less than a week, then he resold me to the house of Crassus.”
Sabina, indentured by her own hand. Such love and sacrifice; how I envied her steel-edged purpose. And how I despised this life! “But your healing skills, surely they were worth a premium?”
“I may not be voluptuous and my hair may be cropped close, but I should like to think I have not fallen so far that a buyer would mistake me for a man. Most Romans insist that included among their doctors’ salves and instruments one may also find a pair of balls.”